One of assignments in July was to attend a conference on human trafficking with a member of the church who is opening an aftercare center for children who have been rescued. We rode together to the University of Santo Tomas to attend. We listened to lectures and watched videos. It was hard and heartbreaking. Friday we visited an aftercare shelter. It was hard and impressive at the same time. The girls we met showed the resiliency of the human spirit as they shared their stories. Those who had been their the longest had light in their eyes. Those more recently arrived would smile a bit and then you would see a deep sadness in their souls. Their faces and stories still haunt me. Sister Cecilia was at the conference with other nuns. She works with this center and others that are part of the. Visayan Forum. She sat near me and translated for me.

That night I wrote about the crazy experience Julie and I had on the way home.-

Tonight-on the bus from Antipolo to UST Julie and I decided that we needed to follow the example of a nun on the bus with us and hop off halfway there instead of going all the way to UST. We had just watched the nun hop of the bus and hurry to jump in a jeepney. If we hopped it would be faster to get home or so we thought. We crossed the two lane service road wove through the jeepneys under the over pass and across two more traffic lanes to the 7-11 to request an Uber pickup. Just as we got there it began pouring. We sheltered under the awning and waited and watched 5 or 6 other groups get in their Uber’s. Then we realized that it looked like ours had passed us. We were watching and never saw it. The map now said it was 17 minutes away. This happened twice. While we waited two trucks with open beds filled with pigs went by. We cancelled that Uber and ordered another one. It did exactly the same thing! Why couldn’t they find us! We requested another car and it looked like he was right in front of us. Fortunately, he texted and said he was at the MiniStop. We told him to wait and trucked across the traffic and jeepneys back to the other side. Yay! The rest of the trip home was uneventful. That one night in the rain when we could’t get a ride and trucks with pigs kept driving past!

Sometime during my time in London, Tokyo or Japan I started writing “Messages from Mom.” There weren’t many and it didn’t last long. Here is one I found today.

Hi Everyone,

I am starting up my “Message from Mom” again. I can’t guarantee it will be monthly, I am not sure I will have that many “profound” things to say. As always, those related to me by blood don’t have an unsubscribe option. Those who have married my children can always opt out.

The last time our home teacher visited, before returning to the USA in June, his message made a strong impression on me. His message was from a talk given at the June 1971 MIA conference by Boyd K. Packer. First you can read it and then I will share my thoughts.

“A few years ago Donna and I attended a holiday dinner at the home of one of our beloved friends. It was a New Years Eve party. Our host had an activity for the evening. He read a few verses of scripture and then quoted at length from a quotation from Heber C. Kimball, a member of the First Presidency during his life. I’ll just quote one sentence from his quotation from President Kimball.

“I have often said,” President Kimball says, “you may write blessings for yourselves and insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

Our host gave us a sheet of paper and an envelope and suggested we write upon the paper the things we hoped to achieve during the new year. And then he repeated again the quotation from Brother Kimball, “…you may write blessings for yourselves. Insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

After we had written our goals on the paper we were asked to seal the envelope and put our name on it. “I will take these to the bank and put them in the vault,” he said. “And a year from now we’ll meet again and have a dinner and I’ll deliver them to you. And we will tell, if we wish, how nearly we have achieved our goals.”

We thoughtfully set our goals that night and sealed them up and they were delivered to the vault to lay silent for one full year. Six things were on my list, each relating to the blessing for someone dear. Each seemed near impossible. One for instance related to a sister and temple marriage. Worthiness was not a problem, it was her body so crippled with disease that a temple session was just out of the question. Or was it? A year went by the envelopes were delivered to us again. During the year with those goals in mind we had prayed now and then and little opportunities or advantages came by, things that would have gone unnoticed without our having set the goal. We were able to move forward first with one goal and then another. There came that endowment session in the temple, there came that sealing ordinance. Four other things happened, but the sixth wouldn’t come to pass. It was on New Year’s Eve that I received a call from across the country. The sixth thing I had written related to the problem of a friend. It just seemed to defy solution. On New Year’s Eve that telephone call came. Excitedly he told me that his problem had been solved. He knew nothing of this list of goals. Our goals had been written, we had set our aim and they had come to pass. Let me repeat again. “…you may write blessings for yourselves and insert every good thing you can think of and it will come to pass on your heads if you do right.”

So now for my thoughts… In the Bible dictionary under prayer it says, “The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is the approved means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.”

I think all of you are familiar with the experience I had in 2009 regarding this very subject. I can testify to you that it works. It is my belief that if we ponder and pray about the blessings that we want to write for ourselves and others, the Spirit will bless to know which blessings to write. Then as we pray, fast and focus on realizing those blessings they will come to pass. I think the key to this is in the final words of President Kimball’s quote, “if you do right.”I have been thinking about what that means. Doing right in my mind is simply being obedient. I try to do right all the time, but there are still little things that I do that I shouldn’t. For example, I never think I obey the Word of Wisdom they way it should be obeyed. I live the letter of it, yet in my mind I don’t live the spirit of it. The spirit is moderation. Another example is the Article of Faith that tells us that we believe in obeying the laws of whatever land we live in. I still jay walk to often, it’s not only dangerous, but breaks the law. I am now waiting for the “green man” on a regular basis.

After hearing this home teaching message, I wrote several blessings down for 2010. All were realized, but two. One of those is in progress and the other one was a blessing I sought for myself. I have come to understand through prayer and fasting that receiving this blessing is based entirely on my obedience. In Doctrine and Covenants 130:20 it says:

“There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”

I was not obedient to the laws necessary for me to receive that blessing. I’m still working on it and know if I am obedient I will receive that blessing. I have a promise from the Lord.

Now, it’s a new year and I have already written the blessings I desire for others and one for myself. I have such a testimony that this works. I love each of you and pray for you daily. I hope you will consider writing some blessings for this year, then be obedient and see those blessings come.

Sometimes being a sheep is not a bad thing. When I was in sixth grade our teacher had us write a letter to ourselves to be read in 6 years. I realized that I would be graduating from high school in six years and decided that maybe I should write about what I would be doing after graduation. I wrote—

Dear Me,

I will be attending Brigham Young University.

Love,

Me

I am not sure why I wrote BYU. I didn’t know anyone who went there. My mother had attended the University of Utah for a short time, but no one else that I knew went to college.

My friends all decided to go to Utah State in Logan, Utah. I thought that was a great plan because I wanted to be with my friends. I started filling out that application. Baaaaa! I was definitely a follower.

Then just before applications were due, they changed their plans and were all applying to BYU! Yikes, this required more work!

I had never met with my assigned school counselor, Maree Rees, until I approached her because I needed a transcript. She was surprised and said that she never imagined that I would want to attend college, let alone BYU. I found out that she had been meeting with my wealthier, more intelligent friends all along. Hmmmm! I got the transcript.

The next stop was meeting with my Bishop. He too was surprised that I was planning to go to BYU. I hadn’t been too active in his ward. I went to church all of the time, but it was usually in another ward with a friend. Since my family didn’t attend church and none of my closest friends were in my ward, I just went to their young women activities and my ward on Sunday.

I would love to see the letter that he wrote for my application. I think it must have gone something like this—

Dear Admissions,

Please accept Vanalee to BYU. She comes from a dysfunctional family. Accepting her will be her salvation.

Sincerely,

Bishop____________

Surprise! I got accepted right away for fall semester. I had arranged housing and was ready to go. It was part of the plan because I met Rick there and as a bonus I discovered that I actually loved learning!

While we were living in Tokyo cupcakes were a very popular treat. Cupcake shops were popping up everywhere in the US, but not many in Tokyo. I loved cupcakes before they were cool. Kristina and Ruth always seemed to find a new spot to try cupcakes when I would visit from Japan. I worked with young women and many others in Tokyo to teach them the art of frosting and decorating cupcakes. It was a lot of fun.

I think cookies have taken over and I have always loved cookies, too. When I was young my mother’s method of home baked cookies was to buy the refrigerated dough from the grocery store and bake it. It was fun for us, but they were usually hard and dry.

Both of my grandmothers made cookies, but they each made just one kind. My dad’s mother baked oatmeal raisin with chopped maraschino cherries added in. She always had some of these in her deep freezer, but they were a rare treat. We loved these! My mother’s mother made frosted sugar cookies for Christmas and Easter. She kept them in a Tupperware container for weeks.

Susan and I asked for the oatmeal cookie recipe and tried to make them. It was sad when we realized she had left out a main ingredient and they failed miserably. I have grandma’s sugar cookie recipe and when I baked them they turned out like dry hockey pucks. I need to try and recreate them.

During our CES mission in Oklahoma City I baked cookies forever. I didn’t keep track until our last semester and I baked 1,205 cookies or cookie bars. That is a lot of cookies. I made a lot of other food, too.

Currently, my cookie favorite remains chocolate chip, but I like brookies, oatmeal chocolate chip and white chocolate chip with dried cranberries. You can find many of my favorites at Vanilla Carrots

I haven’t taken time to write recently and I decided to look at the list of prompts for the Eight Minute Memoir. For some reason this topic is the one that stood out. I am not sure why anyone would be interested in the contents of my bag.

When I was young I watched a game show called “Let’s Make A Deal.” The thing that amazed me was a game where Monty Hall asked for women to produce random items from their handbag in return for money. Most of the woman had huge handbags and could produce just about anything he asked for. Who carries a hard boiled egg or a hammer in their handbag? As a child I really thought that those women always had those things with them rather than walking around the house before the show and filling those huge purses with every random thing they could find.

I don’t carry that kind of handbag. Here are the everyday contents of my bag followed by the things I add on Sunday:

On Sunday I carry a larger purse and usually include-
1 or two clipboards filled with computer paper
extra pens
A flowered drawstring bag containing several varieties of gum and fruit flavored Mentos
My iPad
I share everything, but the iPad

I am wondering what the contents of my bag say about me- I like to write with a cool pen, shop too much, care a bit about how I look, don’t care much about talking on the phone and have a complete phobia about germs and bacteria. Ha!

I love this photo of my mother (I call it the floating head). She was such a beautiful woman. My mother worked her entire life most of it for the telephone company. She always had to. It was necessary for us to be able to live and eat. She made sure we had what we needed.

She loved bowling and partying. She knew how to sew well and was an excellent cook. She became even better when she retired and had money and the time to sew and cook what she wanted. The county newspaper did an article on her and her cooking skills.

I don’t remember ever having rules and I don’t remember ever getting into trouble or being disciplined. I miss her!

The first toy that came to mind was my Chatty Cathy doll. I am not sure when I got her, but she was a very popular item for Christmas that year. I got one and Susan did. too. Mine worked, Susan’s did not and the stores were all sold out. Her Chatty Cathy was exchanged for a Charming Chatty. Charming Chatting was cooler in some ways. Chatty Cathy had a string on the back of her neck that when pulled she would talk- “I love you! I’m hungry, I’m sleepy.” She had about 10 phrases that she could say. This was great in the very beginning, but became boring really fast. On the other hand, Susan’s Charming Chatty was a bit ugly and wore a sailor dress, but her coolness factor and what made her truly the superior doll were the little records that you inserted into her that allowed her to say so much more than Chatty Cathy. Plus, Charming Chatty had eye glasses. I think I actually liked her better than Susan did. I think she always felt bad that her Chatty Cathy didn’t work and she got the uglier doll. I am not sure why we just didn’t trade.

When I was in first grade our reading groups were named after birds, blue birds, red birds, yellow birds. The best readers were in the blue birds, then red, then yellow. I know I was not in the blue bird group. I think I was with the red birds. This bothered me a lot, but probably wasn’t surprising since I don’t really remember my parents reading to me or helping me learn the alphabet or my numbers before I started school. With each advancement to a new grade I became a better reader and loved reading more. I spent a lot of time at the public library and in the school library. By sixth grade, I was reading constantly and discovered I loved reading biographies. I read every biography in the Backman Elementary school library that year. I got to be a library assistant part of the day. My job was to reshelve the books that had been returned. It was an excellent way to discover new books.

As an adult, I have wondered why I loved reading so much and it’s because the books and stories opened a whole new world to me. They allowed me to escape from the not so pleasant parts of my life. And they gave me hope that my life could be different. It seems like every biography that I read was about a person who was able to become “someone” after a rough start in life.

I still love reading and my favorite book for a long time has been, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I read it every couple of years. Other favorites are “Things Fall Apart” and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” I also like to read books set in the Southern United States.

I love how Heavenly Father puts us in the right place at the right time. Rick and I have been serving in the temple every Thursday. I have rarely been assigned to be in the dressing room on the first hour of my shift, it’s usually the last hour.

Not too long ago, I was standing near the door where patrons come in after they have finished their session. A woman came in and although I couldn’t see her face, I could tell that she had been crying. She approached the counter opposite me and I could see her tear stained face in the mirror. It was Ruth’s dear friend, Dixie. Her mother had passed away just weeks before. I softly spoke her name and she rushed into my arms and we hugged for what seemed like a very long time. She whispered to me that she felt her mother close as she attended the temple that morning and that she had had an “ugly” cry in the celestial room. As she sat there she wished that there was someone to give her a hug.

There are no coincidences. I loved that Heavenly Father knew that Dixie would need a hug. I love that He inspired my shift coordinator to assign me to the the exact spot that I needed to be to see her immediately when she came in. Most of all, I love that He allowed me to be there to give her the hug from heaven that she desired that morning.